THE CARE OF THE NATIONAL LANGUAGE IS A SACRED TRUST.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXI, Issue 15, 10 August 1894, Page 11

THE CARE OF THE NATIONAL LANGUAGE IS A SACRED TRUST.

" Is naomlita an ckram c curam teangadk na tire."

TO THE EDITOR N.Z. TABLET.

Sib,— l read Mr J. H. Lloyd's essay on " Whers is the best Irish spoken ? ' I feel pleased and proud to find that he gave tbe palm to the dialect of my native district, West Cork, though he has since modified that opinion.

Forty ycari ago Irish was more generally spoken in West Muskery than the language of the Saxon. The priests nearly always preached and tau?ht the catechism in tbe soft, sweet old tongue of (Jlan-na-CJael. But alas I before I left Ireland, I observed with sorrow that the youn; paople wera learning the prayers and catechism in Baalish, and that a sad neglect of the Irish was spreading rapiily. This need not have happened if the majority of the people had been alive to their own interests. Both languages could have been learned simultaneously with great advantage to the learners. A boy wbo speaks two languages is on a higher intellectual plane th«n he wbo can only converse in one.

It is almost universally admitted by philologists that a bilingual people are more intelligent than a natijn confined to tbe use of one tongue. In W»et Muskery the people wre constantly comparing the

idioms and phrases of both lan^Uige-t, aid that is one of thj best means of polishing the intellect and sharpening the wits.

It is consoling to know that the action of German and French savants who hay« studied and admired our mother-tongae, has at last shamed the Irish people at home into making an effort to nave tbe language of their forefathers fr ax -xinction. We, the scattered sons of the Gael, are called upon to do our part to help tbe movement.

I think the priests of New Zealand could do a great deal in this matter. Tbere are scores of Irish speaking heads of families in this diocese alone. Though I have often a*ked the children of such parents if they iearned any Irish from their fathers and mothers, I never met a single young colonial wbo knew one word of Imh.

Is not this to be attributed to the apathy and shameful n-glect of such parents? The Scotch settlers teach thetr stiff Doric to their children and take a pride in it. The Highlanders have a society to preserve and cultivate their own dialect of (h« Gaelic. Highlanders have frequently spoken to me in Gaelic, and I could understand them. Bat I have never yet met an Irishman in the Colony wbo entered into a conversation ia Irish unless I myself commenced the interview in Irish which was often the case. I think the cause of all this must be found in the accursed system of penal laws which sought to brand our langaage as well as our religion with a mark of infamy, as something to be ashamed of.

Tkere are several priests in this diocese who know Irish fairly well. They could greatly help the movement by urging Irish speaking parents to talk Irish around the family table and fireside, to recite tbe rosary and family prayers in Irish, and though last, not least, to recite or chant any Irish tonga they may remember in what Thomas Davis beautifully and poetically describes as "our langaage that melts into music." Everybody knows that the quickest and

easiest way to learn a language i 8 to talk it. Tbat is how the infanta learn to speak any language without mnch labour. Taen the Btudy of the books published by the Society for the Preservation of the Irish Language would be a labour of love to tboee who first learned from ttnir parents or friends to ask for anything in the house, workshop, or farm. It would do more than all the societies to preserve the language. Those parents who made it a point to teach their children to converse in Irish would find & hrge additional vocabulary in the Irish cattchism. The Tablet could give reports of the transactions of the Home associations and thus help on tha movement very much, -lam, etc., P. O'Lbabt. St Patrick's, Lawrence, July 31, 1894.